Your friendly brain

We had a short consultation in a neurologist's office on Tuesday. Excellent, well-informed, good-communicator fellow. All well, no serious problems found. I couldn't resist this white china bust and was pleased to see that the right hemisphere had the big stuff. while all the many small divisions were on the left hemisphere. So you can tell that the Big Thinkers were already on part of the right track. I am sure there are some great Phrenology images on the web, but tonight I have been looking up home remedies for dachshund diarrhea. Pookie has been wormed and has no other warning signs that she needs the vet. We are trying rice water and 1mg of immodium (crushed in a tablespoon of plain yoghurt) for tonight. Interesting side-note, the website name Diarrheaindogs.com has recently been listed for sale. The link had looked useful, but no, that vet has vanished into non-paymentland.

We had a wonderful lunch and all-afternoon visit in Los Altos Hills with a long-time friend who taught literature with S for many years. Then we came home down the LONG FREEWAY during the fabled rush hour. Horrid! People change lanes way too much and way too fast.

More tonight from the poet, Edward Thomas. (1878-1917) Now All Roads Lead to France is the title of the excellent biography by Matthew Hollis, Norton, 2011. This short poem, which has become a much-loved favorite in England, is on page 204.

Adlestrop

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

--Edward Thomas, 1915, from a notebook experience in 1914.

It helps with the last line if you pronounce Glo'stershire in three syllables in the English manner. As a birder, of course I love the last stanza! And is not willow-herb a lovely name?